Pines Seeking Alternative To Growing Trash Problem

March 11, 1987|By TODD NELSON, Staff Writer

PEMBROKE PINES -- Litterbugs are trashing the streets of a rural neighborhood and causing the city to consider changing how garbage is collected there.

Strangers, probably from nearby construction sites, are the most likely culprits, aiming trash at two large trash containers but missing as they drive down side streets off Southwest 196th Avenue, officials said.

``What I think may be happening is that workers are going by in their pickup truck, throw the trash and it lands alongside the container,`` said Lou Sandora, an owner of Citywide Sanitation, which has a contract to collect garbage in the city.

In recent weeks, one of the large containers has been stolen, Sandora said. Others have been ruined by heavy construction material tossed in.

``They were actually stealing the containers, burning the bottoms out of them, Sandora said. ``The problem is that it`s so desolate a lot of people use it for construction materials, which they`re not supposed to.``

Officials said they are certain residents living along the Southwest 12th Street, 13th Manor, 14th Street and 14th Court are not responsible for the mess.

Those residents, numbering about 15 households, will be polled to determine whether they want to keep the large containers on their streets or whether they would be willing to put their trash in their own containers and take them to 196th Avenue at the end of their side streets.

At present, residents must use the large containers placed on the side streets because those side streets and 196th Avenue are unpaved and cannot be used by Citywide trucks that pick up garbage in other residential areas, Sandora said.

Citywide, which picks up residential garbage twice a week elsewhere, now makes three trips a week to 196th Avenue because of the problems.

City Clerk Charles Dodge said the administration recommended its alternative as a way to remove the large containers and the piles of trash strewn around them from the residential streets.

Sandora said the plan also would allow Citywide to make only two pickups a week in the area.